


Braver Now

by rosymamacita



Series: Eden Valley [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Mentions of Echo - Freeform, S5 Speculation, They talk, before clarke reunites with madi, no jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 02:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14415384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosymamacita/pseuds/rosymamacita
Summary: They got away from the Eligius and have holed up in a cave during a dust storm, alone. It's the first time they've been alone.The first time they've talked.Clarke has learned to be braver now.





	Braver Now

**Author's Note:**

> I pushed myself to finish this tonight even though my brain has started to shut off. Because show day is tomorrow! And I wanted to celebrate! And I probably wouldn't be able to post it tomorrow. So here, have some Bellarke angst and a little bit of fluff. I hope the editing isn't a mess, I rushed a little.

Out here, past the valley, where the land was sheltered and the air was pure, there were storms, filling the air with ash and dust, the remains of a world long gone.

Clarke settled far back into the cave, where the dust didn’t reach quite as well, and lay down. Bellamy stood at the front, his rifle at the ready, trying to peer into filthy air to see if Eligius was on their trail.

“Bellamy,”she said quietly. He didn’t respond. “Bellamy!”

He rolled his head around to look at her. “What?”

“They aren’t tracking us.”

“You don’t know that.”

“They aren’t grounders. They don’t know how to track and even if they did, the dust storm wiped out all our tracks.They can’t find us.They don’t know about my hiding spots. We’re safe.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

She shrugged and pulled out the rations of dried meat. She’d saved some for him before they left, because she knew how much he loved having real food again, after subsisting for so long on algae and recycled water.

“As safe as we can be. Come on, eat something.” She waved the packet of meat and took out some dried berries while she was at it. Even in the dim, dusty gloom of the cave, she could see his eyes light up. 

He sighed like she was making him do something he didn’t want to and came to sit with her, angling himself so he could still see out the entrance of the cave and watch the storm. 

He didn’t let down his guard for the entire meal and when the light through the storm went so dark the sun was sure to be below the horizon, he turned on their tiny battery lantern and nodded his chin at the packs. “You sleep. I’lll take first watch.”

Clarke didn’t move.

“It’s not like before,” she said finally. “They’re not grounders. We’re not being hunted.”

He shot her a look. “It feels like before. And they are hunting us. Just because they’re not as good at tracking doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get us. It feels just like before.” He glowered into the darkness and grit his jaw and she wanted to run her fingers along it.

“Not quite like before,” she said, before she could think about her words. 

His head turned she was glad the lantern was barely more than a nightlight. He couldn’t see her cheeks turn red, because the truth is that it wasn’t like before. They weren’t like before. 

She thought about what it had felt like to be hiding from the Eligius in that dead tree together, before they had lost them, her chest pressed up against his, their breaths synced as they waited for the squad of prisoners to pass by. And then when the sound of their boots faded away, how they stayed there, eyes locked, feeling the heat between them. 

She knew he’d felt it to. She knew. 

But then he’d cleared his throat and shook his head and said it was all clear. And she took him through the hidden pass and the dust storm, to this cave, where she and madi would stop, sometimes, half way between home and Polis. Before they had figured out that it was no use trying to dig out the bunker. So now she and Bellamy were safe and hidden. And alone. 

And it wasn’t like before. 

But he turned away again and settled himself away from her.

It was confusing. Because she knew he felt it to. But he kept his distance. When he could. They still worked together as a team. He had her back like before. So she swallowed and started again, keeping the memory of being so close to him out of her voice. “Not like before, because we don’t have to be afraid they’re after us all the time. This is not their territory, it’s mine. And I’ve set up snares all around to warn me if anything gets near. Trust me Bellamy. I’ve been watching out for myself for a long time now. And I didn’t have anyone to keep watch while I slept. We’re safe.”

He gasped like she’d hit him. And then let out his breath in a ragged exhale.

“What?” He was confusing her. She used to be able to read him like a book. She always knew he had her back, and she still trusted him, she couldn’t help it, but she didn’t know what made him tick anymore. She didn’t recognize his noises. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong.

“It’s my fault.”

“What?” The word was startled right out of her. “The elegius?”

‘No. You. Being left here. All alone. For six years. With no one to watch your back.”

She was stunned. The ancient history tumbled over her. “It had to be done.”

He shifted closer to her and shook his head. The shadows grew. “I should have helped you on the tower. We could have finished and gotten back to the rocket in time.”

“But you had to go save Monty. If you hadn’t, Monty would have died. Or Monty and Murphy both.”

He shook his head. “We would have made it. All of us.”

“Then Madi would have died on earth alone.”

“I should have stayed behind then.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “No! Never. You would have died, Bellamy. I almost did, and I had the nightblood. You wouldn’t be alive now. I would have lost you, Bellamy. I would have lost you forever.”

She found herself next to Bellamy, her hand pressed up against his good strong heart, without really knowing how she got there. She didn’t remember moving closer to him.

“It wasn’t the only choice,” she started, remembering when they’d joked once about oxymorons, “but it was the best choice. We all made it. I found Madi. We’re back….” She said and faltered. The word on her lips had been theirs once and she wasn’t sure if it still was. She swallowed, because she had become brave. “Together,”she said.

He gasped again and this time he leaned into her, his hand coming up to brush her hair out of her eyes and tuck it behind her ear. She smiled, because she knew it wouldn’t work, it would fall back into her face and he’d have to brush it back again. And she wanted him to.

“I missed you,” he said, and this time the gasp was forced from between her lips. She hadn’t wanted him to miss her. She hadn’t wanted him to be sad, or feel guilty, but he had.

She shook her head, in denial of something she had no right to deny. He deserved his pain as much as she had.The pain of being left behind, of not knowing if she’d ever see him again, of surviving, alone. But she didn’t want him to take it on. To feel the burden.

“It had to be done, Bellamy. This is the way we survived. All of us.”

“I wanted you, Clarke. I wanted you by my side. I wanted you next to me so I could talk to you. Be with you.” He paused. Swallowed. He had grown brave, too. “Hold you in my arms.”

Her heart was beating so fast. She yearned towards him. “I’m right here.”

He didn’t answer, just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. She curled against him and tucked her face into the spot between his neck and his shoulder. It was her spot. It always had been. 

“I missed you, too, Bellamy.”

She could feel the grin against her forehead, where his lips were pressed.

“You were desperate. You were one of two people left on a barren earth.”

She considered letting him have the joke. Backing away from the truth. But she was braver now.

“No,” she said, and her voice was steady. “Because I love you.” 

His heart was beating against her palm. She hadn’t said it in the past tense, because that would not have been true. And facing the truth was a thing she had learned to do in the last six years. She had loved him. She loved him the whole six years of struggle and even when it got easy and life was pleasant and happy with Madi, she still had loved him, and thoughts of him sustained her. And she loved him now.

His slow and even breathing said to Clarke that he knew that. That she meant she loved him now, even after everything. And because she was braver, she said it all. “But I know that you moved on with your family, and that’s where your love goes. I know that Echo—“

He crushed her to him. “I never—I never stopped loving you, Clarke. For six years I was in love with you, and I knew I had to let you go. I had to let you be dead, and allow myself to move on. And I tried to move on.”

Clarke realized that she wasn’t breathing. “But I’m not dead.” She wondered if she was really as brave now as she thought she was, because she wasn’t sure if she would be able to say this if it wasn’t so dark, and he couldn’t see the desperate longing in her face.

His fingers trailed up the side of her neck to her jaw, turned her face to him. “And I’m still in love with you.”

When his lips fell on hers, softly, tentatively, she was glad it was so dark, and it was just them in this cave, insulated from the rest of the world and the wars and the alliances and their people and even Madi, alone. Just them. Because the soft brush of him against her broke her open, made her feel like a green growing thing again, like fresh cool water and blue sky. He made her feel alive again.

She clutched at his shirt and pulled him closer, deepened the kiss, and he responded in kind. She felt a heat she hadn’t felt in years. It couldn’t be so much more than she’d ever felt before. It couldn’t. That was just an illusion from being lonely for so long. A sob broke from her, and Bellamy let her go.

She forced herself not to pull him back in. It wasn’t just the two of them, no matter what it felt like in the middle of the dust storm. “Your people,” she said.

And he pulled back farther. She caught his eyebrows drawn down in the light from their lantern. “This isn’t about them.”

“Isn’t it? I wouldn’t ask you to choose me over them.”

He cleared his throat. “You mean Echo.”

She shrugged. Wanting to be nonchalant, although she was pretty sure she’d already shown her hand. 

“We’re not together. I don’t know what we are. Maybe it was going there, but how can I…”

“But she loves you,” she said. He raked a hand through his hair. “And you love her.”

“But not like I love you, Clarke. Dammit. I never thought you could be alive. I never believed it, although in my dreams I kept hoping. I kept hoping. And I knew it was so stupid and I was torturing myself.”

“You had to let me go.”

“But you’re alive! You’re alive Clarke. All my dreams came true. I shouldn’t have let you go. I shouldn’t have given up.”

It hurt her heart to say it. “Yeah, you should have let me go. You should have lived your life without me.”

“I couldn’t. And I kept waiting, hoping I’d get over you but I never did. That’s why I… that’s why I opened the door to moving on. Because I realized I’d never feel for anyone else what I feel for you. And you were gone. And I loved Echo. So I had to move on.”

She swallowed the tears down and hoped he couldn’t see.”That’s why we can’t.”

In the dimness, he reached out for her hand. He linked his fingers through hers and shifted closer so she could feel his body heat. “She knows how I feel about you. We used to talk about it. And I told her how I couldn’t let go, how you were still the center of my soul. She knows. Clarke. She knows I’m in love with you, and not her. She knew it was over when we found out you were alive. She’s barely… we’ve barely shared two words since then. She knows. And she doesn’t want to face it.”

Clarke let her hand lay limp in his. “I don’t know what that means.” 

He squeezed her fingers. “Neither do I. But I can’t be with her. Not while you—“ he gasped. He laughed. “While you are alive.” He pulled her hand to his chest. “And you’re alive.” She could barely breathe. “But I can’t be with you until I talk to her. It’s not fair. She waited for me to be ready.”

“I messed it up.”

“No.” He kissed her fingers. “I was never ready. I never got over you.”

“You don’t have to get over me.” She was brave now. “You can have me.”

He put his arm around her and she curled into his side. She pressed her lips against her spot, there between his neck and his shoulder. She felt him shiver,but he didn’t speak. She didn’t blame him. It felt like tempting fate.

They sat like that for a while before her bravery made her speak again. “We have until morning until we have decide what to do. Press through the dust storm or wait it out. My snares will warn us. The storm will cover us. We need to rest, will you…” Her bravery failed her.

“What? Say it.”

“Sleep with me—not— just lay with me? Sleep next to me. I just want to have you there. To know you’re there.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I would like that.”

They didn’t need to talk anymore. They stretched out, and he pulled her into his chest and she could hear his heart beat. The storm howled outside the cave. It was cold and the floor was hard and the air was full of dust and hard to breathe, but she had never felt so safe. Perhaps ever. Never felt so complete. Now that Bellamy was there again.


End file.
